It would never occur to Tiny (left) or her beloved, Earl Grey, to attempt to explain frightening implications without using muscular language.
"Muscular prose reflects muscular thinking (Churchill, Reagan, GW)," we blogged a coupla months back in our post "An Army of Twitterers," noting that
Flabby prose reflects flabby thinking (Chamberlain, Carter, Obama). Never use one metaphorically-charged noun or active verb when a string of colorless nouns and passive verbs will do.
Which brings us to our first ever disagreement with "the shining fresh face of the antistatist party," Mary Katharine Ham." MK was twittering about Sarah Palin's decision to use the phrase "death panel" in her Facebook critique of Obamacare. MK worried that hyperbole would give opponents an opening:
There's a way to explain frightening implications of government control without using language that makes folks go "She can't be right, right?"
We loved Jim Treacher's answer to that:
I dunno. Is "End-of-Life Panel" really a better euphemism? Six of one …
"Death Panel" vs. "End-of-Life Panel"? No competition. As we twittered Mary Katharine this afta:
"DEATH PANEL" = HEART-STOPPING METAPHOR for what ails us = Obama's plan to decide who lives or dies. I say LET IT LIVE!
Sarah Palin speaks from the heart, and ANYTHING about her will antagonize the enemy. We need to STAY IN THEIR FACE!!!!
From the heart, Mother of All Muscles. Muscular prose.